IPL: An unsustainable media bubble

The price of IPL, points more strongly than ever, to the fact that content costs are skyrocketing while advertising and subscription revenues have simply not kept pace

Earlier this week, Disney Star won the TV rights and Reliance’s Viacom18 won the digital rights to the Indian Premier League or IPL. The Board of Control for Cricket in India earned over Rs 48,000 crore ($6.2 billion) from the sale of media rights. That is over three times the price it fetched in 2017. There has been a lot of chest-thumping about how, on a per match basis, IPL is now second only to the American National Football League (NFL) one of the world’s most expensive sports properties.

That is cause for concern, not celebration. The NFL operates in